With every press conference Sean McVay holds comes a question about Aaron Donald – and understandably so. The future Hall of Famer is considering a comeback after spending the last two years in retirement, flirting with the possibility of playing for the Los Angeles Rams again.
McVay has expressed optimism about Donald’s potential return, struggling to contain his excitement in a few recent interviews. But McVay was more serious and realistic after Saturday’s win over the Chiefs when he was asked for an update on Donald’s plans.
Once again, he essentially said there’s no news on that front, which isn't what Rams fans want to hear. However, McVay’s comments paint a more practical picture than the overly optimistic one many have seen in recent weeks.
The ball is still on Donald’s court, with McVay continuing to stay in touch.
“We have had great dialogue,” McVay said. “It's going to be on his timeline, you know? And when he feels good about having clarity, whether that's a yes or whether that ends up being a no, we've had some tentative discussions behind the scenes. There's a lot of stuff, without getting too granular with it and just out of respect for, you know, the dialogue that he and I have, that I do think he's earned the right.”
McVay applauded the job his players and coaches have done of focusing on the task at hand, rather than worrying about whether Donald will or won’t come out of retirement.
“I think our guys are doing a great job of focusing on what they can control, and that's our current team as it stands right now,” he added. “If Aaron does decide he wants to do it, I've been very open that we want to try to be able to explore that opportunity. But I think he has kind of earned the right to be able to say – like, he knows himself in terms of, ‘Am I able to stack back-to-back days? Am I able to do some of the different things?’ And some of those benchmarks that he set out for himself. And what I don't want to sit here and do is put a timeline on it, and then something comes up where I've got to kind of push it back.”
As he’s said before, there are some tentative dates that the Rams and Donald have set. They’re not hard deadlines, but they do help set expectations for what may or may not happen.
He didn’t specify when those dates are or what the team needs to know by then, but the Rams are letting Donald decide on his terms whether he wants to come back or not.
“What I have said with him, we have some loose things where we've identified, you know, dates that we'd like to be able to hit,” he said. “But what I don't want to have is any sort of unnecessary pressure on him if there's some unforeseen circumstances.”
In the meantime, McVay is focused on continuing to prepare for the season and push his players to get better. He’s confident the Rams have a great team as it is, with Donald being a bonus if he does return.
He says the Rams are “not at that point quite yet” when it comes to getting clarity from Donald on his looming decision, but he hopes it’ll be sooner rather than later. And he indicated that the team is closer to getting that much-desired clarity than not.
“I feel great about our football team as it currently stands, and I know he'll add value if he decides to come,” he said. “And so, if he's put himself in a position to be able to say yes or no, I think he's earned the right to have clarity on that. We're not at that point quite yet.
“I'm hopeful that it'll be sooner than later, but I also want to respect when he does feel like that clarity will come. I think there's a chance that we'll be closer to that than not. But, again, I don't want to I don't want to say too much or put some sort of invisible deadline on something that doesn't exist in my mind for him.”
If Donald is planning to play the full season, he'll need to come back relatively soon, with just a few weeks until Week 1 in Australia. But that's not a hard deadline. He can return in the middle of the season if he chooses, too. But until we get word from the man himself, no one truly knows what he's going to do.
This article originally appeared on Rams Wire: Sean McVay gets realistic with latest update on Aaron Donald